Help!
I'm pretty much a linux noob and I'm trying to admin a remote redhat server here from a windows box (I have no physical access to the server). It came fairly bare-bones, all I have is ssh for access, and I'm trying to get a GUI working remotely. I installed the latest XFree86 but of course the server has no mouse or video. So I've tried both Xwin32 and Cygwin/X and they both seem to have the same problem - whenever I run 'X -configure' it always comes up with the same error:



XFree86 is not able to detect your mouse.
Edit the file and correct the Device.



And when I try 'XFree86 -xf86config /root/XF86Config.new' as it suggests, I get the same thing:



(EE) xf86OpenSerial: Cannot open device /dev/mouse
No such file or directory.
(EE) Mouse0: cannot open input device
(EE) PreInit failed for input device "Mouse0"
No core pointer

Fatal server error:
failed to initialize core devices



Isn't Cygwin/X supposed to emulate the mouse and the display for me? I'm running an 'X -broadcast' on the windows machine and have followed the advice of some good online tutorials to get this set up properly. How do I get this to work? Thanks in advance for any advice.

- Ian

Uninstall the X server from the Linux box. You are not displaying anything on the server so you don't need to run the X server software either.

If you want to run single graphical apps from Linux then you can use Cygwin just fine. Run the Cygwin X server. Log into Linux with SSH (make sure X forwarding is enabled) and run your graphical program from the command line. The window should magically appear on your WIndows desktop.

If you want to have access to the Linux desktop, install a VNC package and run vncserver instead of the X server in Linux.

OK I uninstalled XFree86, but I still have the problem that I can't install apps that require XFree86 (eg tightvnc)
How do I get around this?

There are many parts to X. You do need the X libraries. What you don't need is the actual X server (since you won't be using any displays/mice on the server).

It would be a good idea to use yum or apt-get to install software so only needed components are installed with things.

See the Exceed Hummingbird; an excellent choice for X based applications. For remote systems,
of course you'll need a DNS to resolve the name and if it's interior to a corporate
firewall, you're going to need a VPN connection.

The Xterm $hostname:n command will create a window on your PC for
accessing $hostname. the :n is a reference to the frame buffer,
typically '0' (zero)